Middletown transcript., 1887-12-08
THE BOOMERANG.

Several German observers have been
studying the boomerang, for the dis
covery Of the secret of its curious
course of fight. DIR. 81. Landois OF
Munster, from intercourse with q
group Of native Australians, who were
exhibited there, has found that there are
larger and smaller boomerangs. The
larger ones are slender crescents, about
sixty centimetrss long, five and half
centimetres wide and one centimetre
thick plane on the lower side, convex
on the upper side, pointed at either
end, and sharpened toward the edges.
The lower end is cross-grooved, to aid
in holding it. The careful manner in
which the savages manipulated the
weapon, trying its shape testing its
qualities and scraping it down, is signlh-
icant of the Importance they attach to
its having exactly the right curvature.
The wood Of which the instrument is
made is an extraordinarily heavy Aus
tralian ironwood; and the only tools
used in making it are sharp stones and
pieces of glass. The smaller boomer
angs are bent at an angle of forty five
degrees but are in other respects con-
formed to the larger ones. An exhibi-
tion of boomerang throwing revealed a
degree of strength in. the natives which
was in astonishing contrast with the
thinness of their forms. They took the
weapon in their right hand, with the
fat side downward and the concave side
forward, and with a run and shout,
threw it by short jerk about one hum
dred yards up into the air. It few
away in a straight line, then turned to
the left, and returned in curved line
back to the thrower, whirling around
constantly and whizzing unpleasantly.
The curve which the weapon describes
in its return is not q screw line or q
spiral, but is more like a figure 8.
The saYages seemed able to control
their instrument, even when wind in
terferred to complicate its course.
Once the projectile went astray, and,
coming in contact with gentleman's
hat, cut it off as cleanly as a razor
would have done. Herr Herman Froe-
bel, of Weimar, who seems to be a
manufacturer of toy boomerangs, as he
speaks Of having made eleven thous-
and specimens of the article, believes
he has discovered the mystery of its
shape. 1t is not crescent, nor even
curvature, but must have kind of a
nick, or sharper curvature, in the
middle, with the two arms Of unequal
length, in the proportion of about four
to five. The arms should not be
of the same thickness, but the longer
one should be pared down 50 as exact
ly to balance the shorter one. The
correctness of these principles may be
verified by adding. very little to the
weight of either arm, or by slightly
shortening the longer one. The in
strument viii then no longer answer
it's peculiar purpose any better than if
it were only a common stick. The pc
culiarity Of the motion of the boomer
ang is due to the, difference in the
length of the arms, by the operation
of which divergence from the circu-
lar is impaired to its curve of rotation. |
The remarkable feature of the whole |
matter is that such savages as the Aus
tralians should have been able to dis
cover the peculiar properties of this
form and apply them. The fact shows
what extraordinary powers of observa-
tion the people of nature possess. The
attempts to give philosophical expla-
nation of the trajectory of the boomer
ang variously compare itwith the car
oming of billiard ball, the sailing of a
piece OF paper or card board in the air,
and the flight of birds.-From the
Popular Science Monthly.